America, the Zombie nation

[Rach3]

Remind you of anyone you know have seen ?

WAPO
Sally Jenkins
Columnist
Dec. 2, 2020

Here we are, still living through this damn zombie movie. Only the zombies aren’t the living dead; they’re the incompetent braindead in living bodies, jerkily animated by their own impervious wants, sightless and hollowed out, incapable of self-preservation yet wreakers of havoc and destruction on others. It took just one zombie on the Baltimore Ravens who neglected to cover his nose and mouth with a mask to thereby wreck his own team, and with a ripple effect of infection plunge the NFL into organizational chaos.

They’re easy to spot, zombies: They’re the un-sentient, disconnected husks who walk around breathing potential hell on their colleagues and neighbors. They lurch clumsily into the midst of crowded rooms with their masks either missing or dragging around their chins, spreading their odorless danger mercilessly as they shout. Steve Saunders, strength coach of the Ravens? Clearly a zombie. Denver Broncos quarterbacks Drew Lock, Blake Bortles, Brett Rypien and Jeff Driskel are a whole cohort of zombies, mobile in body but empty-skulled, lax and evidently less than cooperative about their contacts. See, one thing about zombies is that they are not just unthinking. They are aggressively unthinking.

In the NFL’s approach to the Broncos and Ravens, fairness was not part of the equation
The thing to do when you see a zombie is scream — scream their names out loud. It’s unclear whether this can stop a zombie, because they are such inherently sightless, deaf, selfish and oblivious organisms: Saunders reportedly went to work with symptoms and left fevered handprints all over the Ravens’ facility, and now the infections are at 30 people, from quarterback Lamar Jackson to a nutritionist. Perhaps loud public shaming might at least give the zombies pause, long enough for folks to run in the other direction.

As Pittsburgh Steelers cornerback Joe Haden tweeted last week: “They always got our names blasted across the TV screen when we break the rules! Put a face on it.”

There has been evidence of zombie-like incursion into the NFL’s main office in the Park Avenue headquarters, despite all those hermetic doors that make a hissing noise. The league’s determination to make the Ravens and the Pittsburgh Steelers play on a Wednesday at 3:40 p.m., after three postponements, is purely unsettling. There is something about it that feels forced, involuntary, creepily so. It’s as though league officials mistake frenzied activity for winning against the virus. But then, they just reflect their audience in that.Because zombie-ism is not restricted to those teams or solely to the NFL. There are signs of zombification in lots of Americans lately. They may come on as rugged individualists, but the giveaway is they’re always in shambling mobs looking for something to eat.

Speaking of zombie meals, the San Francisco 49ers should beware of eating in Arizona, where they will now be playing because virus hospitalizations at home have tripled in a month. The 49ers would do well to avoid Phoenix-area restaurants like Houston’s and Bandera, because they’re owned by the Hillstone Group, which appears to be run entirely by zombies. Back in May, the company’s vacant-minded managers directed staffers not to wear face masks, to the point that a Dallas-based employee had to sue for the right to don protective gear at work. A local Arizona coronavirus model now predicts a new viral surge will be “a major forest fire without an evacuation order” unless the state mandates masking. Hillstone’s restaurants are reluctant to enforce masks — but they forbid guests from wearing hats, tank tops, flip flops and team athletic attire.The coronavirus has turned the NFL into a joke, and nobody should be laughing.

Another thing about zombies is they tend to be super belligerent, yet they howl with outrage at any act that might impede them, and they are highly evasive. Saunders of the Ravens and the four Broncos quarterbacks reportedly ditched their league-issued tracking devices, making it harder to trace infections. For the Ravens, that meant nine straight days of positive tests across the Thanksgiving holiday. Defensive end Calais Campbell, who has asthma, got sick enough to tweet: “This virus is brutal! I pray no one else has to go through this.”

But then, a classic hallmark of zombies is that they are unaffected by injuries to themselves or to others. They’re unmoved by cases like those of Jacksonville Jaguars running back Ryquell Armstead, who is just 24 yet has been hospitalized twice with covid-related breathing issues, and 25-year-old Buffalo Bills tight end Tommy Sweeney, who developed myocarditis. Zombies, as we know, are highly unemotional and unimaginative, so they are incapable of projecting themselves into a hospital bed. The zombies inside the locker rooms suppose themselves pre-inoculated by their physical superiority and their privileged habitations, fortified by private laboratory tests.

Maybe the scariest thing of all about zombies is their vacancy. They have a blank recklessness, with their assumption that no plague can touch them, and it matters not the least if it touches others. If there is a meaning to the zombie metaphor in all those horror films, it’s about a moral void in a culture gone badly wrong with carelessness.

Zombies don’t have to be bat-bitten, red-eyed raveners, sinister and recomposed. They can be stalkers, sleepers. Perfectly normal-seeming executives, colleagues, neighbors. And they can be real. The only tell is their utter smugness as they stare through evidence of exponential infections, ICUs at capacity and skyrocketing death rates, and yet blithely go on trying to colonize your lungs. Don’t just avoid them. Call them out, so others can see them.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2 ... g-devices/

[Rach3]

From the NYT coronavirus newsletter tonight. What a "great" country we are ; egads:


I’ll be honest in that I cannot deal with a pandemic and social distancing. So I live mostly as if there is no pandemic, except that I always wear my mask and am mindful of when I am in places of essential business like grocery stores. Where I live the bars are still open late and I always go out to let out steam and socialize. They are getting more and more full over time as more people are becoming pandemic fatigued. I feel bad sometimes but also I have to survive. This is the most difficult situation I have ever faced, including my divorce in 2019.

— Eric Little, Murfreesboro, Tenn.

[Rach3]

Midwest nursing shortage :

"Dr. Eli Perencevich, an epidemiology and internal medicine professor at the University of Iowa, said health care workers are paying the price for other peoples’ refusal to wear masks.
'It’s sending everyone to war, really,” he said. 'We’ve decided as a society that we’re going to take all the people in our health care system and pummel them because we have some insane idea about what freedom really is.'"

https://www.thegazette.com/subject/news ... g-20201203

[maestrob]

The anger in that article is visceral, and I agree.

Meanwhile, the yesterday's positivity level in Manhattan, where we are scrupulously social distancing and wearing masks, was 1.5%.

Amazing what a little common sense can achieve.

https://www.governor.ny.gov/news/govern ... rk-state-4

[barney]

Some times it needs something like that imaginative leap to get the point across. Morally, they are zombies, as she outlines. We seem to have imported from the US a witless movement called Sovereign Citizens, who owe no one any responsibilities or duties, yet greedily and selfishly grasp to themselves all the services provided by the state to whom they owe no allegiance, such as roads, hospitals, rubbish collection. Despicably selfish and stupid.

[jserraglio]

We’ve decided as a society that we’re going to take all the people in our health care system and pummel them because we have some insane idea about what freedom really is.

Libertarianism has its rightful time and place, but that is not here and not now.

[Rach3]

Despicably selfish and stupid.

From the Axios newsletter today; America the selfish, not " the beautiful " at all:

A couple was arrested after boarding a United Airlines flight in Hawaii knowing that they were positive for the coronavirus.

Hundreds of mostly maskless protesters packed the street outside a Staten Island bar that was forced to shut down this week after flouting coronavirus restrictions.(Chanting " open, open".)

Austin Mayor Steve Adler (D) apologized Wednesday after it was revealed he had vacationed in Mexico shortly before urging residents to avoid all travel.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is planning to host hundreds of people at an indoor holiday party, despite the agency advising his subordinates to avoid in-person gatherings.

[Rach3]

From the NYT today:

"The New York Young Republican Club held its annual gala. Images posted on Twitter showed attendees gathered inside, close together and wearing no masks."

These people should be in jail.

[maestrob]

From the NYT today:

"The New York Young Republican Club held its annual gala. Images posted on Twitter showed attendees gathered inside, close together and wearing no masks."

These people should be in jail.

Indeed.

Your "freedom" ends when you do something that risks my life. End of story.

[Rach3]

From Axios' newsletter this am:


An alarming number of Americans say they'd reject a COVID vaccine, posing a risk to the country's ability to achieve widespread immunity.

Why it matters: Vaccine adoption is a matter of trust, and trust in most institutions is at generational lows. Anthony Fauci has said 70-75% of Americans will need to vaccinate to get the country on the road to normality.

Two new polls show trouble brewing:

More than half of New York City firefighters (who are 77% white), said in a union poll that they won't get a COVID vaccination when it becomes available to first responders, the N.Y. Post reports.

Fewer than half of Black respondents (42%) in a Pew Research poll released Friday said they'd definitely or probably get a COVID vaccine if it were available today.

Trust has risen since early November, Margaret Talev reports from the Axios-Ipsos Coronavirus Index.In that stretch, three pharmaceutical trials have returned positive findings on the efficacy of their COVID vaccines.

In our poll taken Nov. 20-23, for the first time in months, more than half of Americans (51%) say they're likely to take a first-generation COVID-19 vaccine as soon as it's available. College-educated and white Americans and Democrats are driving the trend.70% overall (55% of Black respondents and 60% of Republicans) say they'd take the vaccine if public health officials say it's safe and effective.
Pew finds that overall, 60% of respondents would definitely or probably take the vaccine if it were available today — up 9 points from 51% in September.
The Post reports that 55% of 2,053 firefighters polled last week by the Uniformed Firefighters Association (about 25% of 8,200 active members), answered "No" when asked: "Will you get the COVID-19 Vaccine from Pfizer when the Department makes it available?"

Firefighters union president Andy Ansbro told The Post: "A lot of them probably feel they are not in a risk category, they are younger, stronger, they may have already had it and gotten through it, and feel it's not their problem."


Vaccine scarcity: Initial supply 10% of promise

Instead of 300 million vaccine doses immediately after emergency-use approval, and before the end of 2020 — as the Trump administration had originally promised — "current plans call for availability of around a tenth of that, or 35 to 40 million doses," the WashPost reports.

Why it matters: "Lower-than-anticipated allocations have caused widespread confusion and concern in states, which are beginning to grasp the level of vaccine scarcity they will confront in the early going of the massive vaccination campaign."

[maestrob]

Right now, the two of us are planning to wait until February to get our first shot. Of course we have no plans to socialize, will wear masks when we go out, and wash our hands when we come home from walks around the block, so we'll pose no danger to others or to ourselves.

That said, members of our family who are essential workers in healthcare and the justice system are quite skeptical at the moment, but will probably take it as soon as they are able.

[Rach3]

Passing the buck : the failure to equate resistance to science to resistance to law ; prohibiting drunk driving , but not mandating mask wearing :

https://tinyurl.com/yx96oxju

Per NYT, Senate Republicans have invited an anti-vaccine doctor to be the lead witness at a hearing on coronavirus treatments tomorrow.

[maestrob]

Passing the buck : the failure to equate resistance to science to resistance to law ; prohibiting drunk driving , but not mandating mask wearing :

https://tinyurl.com/yx96oxju

Per NYT, Senate Republicans have invited an anti-vaccine doctor to be the lead witness at a hearing on coronavirus treatments tomorrow.

Excellent reporting, Rach3.

Trickle-down theory, a failed zombie idea promulgated by Republican economists, doesn't work fighting a pandemic either.

Harry Truman had it right when he said, "The buck stops here."

[Rach3]

The NYT suggests it's time to start scaring Americans about what COVID is like:

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/07/opin ... e=Homepage

[maestrob]

The NYT suggests it's time to start scaring Americans about what COVID is like:

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/07/opin ... e=Homepage

Quite agree, but it won't happen until after January 20, 2021. By then it will be too late for many hundreds of thousands killed in the meantime.

[Rach3]

From Axios tonight:

"The big picture: Lawmakers in battleground states are providing pedestals for the airing of baseless legal grievances, AP reports

Arizona: The chairperson of the Arizona GOP asked a court to overturn Biden’s win. Republicans held a meeting where Trump's lawyers were permitted to claim the state's vote counts were fraudulent without providing evidence.

Michigan: Lawmakers allowed Rudy Giuliani to testify at a now-infamous legislative hearing last week. One Republican member of the state's board of election canvassers abstained from certifying the final vote.

Pennsylvania: 64 lawmakers asked Congress to decline to accept the state's electors.
Candidates are embracing Trumpian tactics, reports Axios' Ursula Perano.

House candidate Sean Parnell (R-Pa.) has declined to concede in his race against incumbent Rep. Conor Lamb (D-Pa.) and has joined a petition in Commonwealth Court against the Pennsylvania general assembly arguing the state's mail-in ballots were illegitimate, the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review reports.

GOP gubernatorial candidate Loren Culp in Washington state has refused to concede after the election despite a shellacking from incumbent Gov. Jay Inslee (D).

Multiple other candidates insisted their losses were the result of widespread fraud. None have provided credible evidence."

Axios also reports that “Gym” Jordan of Ohio , and Matt Geatz of Florida, 2 of Trump’s brown-shirts, are urging a House floor fight over whether to accept the slate of State electors.

[maestrob]

And the beat goes on......

It never ceases to astonish me how many people think that they can win by creating their own reality, rather than accepting the flow of history.

It's a much better strategy to accept that society is evolving constantly to a better place. We may take a step or two backwards, but somehow humanity has over and over recovered from our regressions.

To me, this has very little to do with politics as a rule. Rather, it's a continuing raising of awareness in the population. Politics is merely the manifestation of that process.

Abraham Lincoln famously freed us from the terrible stain of slavery after the horror of the Civil War. He was a Republican. General Eisenhower, who freed Western Europe from Nazi oppression and the became a Republican President, sent in Federal troops to begin school segregation in 1957. Yet now, Republicans relentlessly suppress the votes of the descendants of those that their party freed.

As we have grown and matured as a society over the millennia, it has become more and more difficult for dictators to win at imposing an individual version of reality in the Western Hemisphere. IMHO, we think we have "won" something, but the struggle for continued peace, freedom and prosperity that is the result of our raised awareness is far from over.

We're still maturing. It's tough work, and it's not over by far.

[Rach3]

2 stories today from NYT's newletter reflecting the Trump administration’s criminal negligence and Americans' recklessness:

Once Pfizer delivers its first 100 million vaccine doses to the U.S., the country may not get another batch until June. That’s because the Trump administration passed on a deal last summer to secure more shots, and the European Union bought them.

( Rach3 : There are about 350M Americans.)
-------------
A vaccine is like a fire hose. A vaccine that’s 95 percent effective, as Moderna’s and Pfizer’s versions appear to be, is a powerful fire hose. But the size of a fire is still a bigger determinant of how much destruction occurs.

At the current level of infection in the U.S. (about 200,000 confirmed new infections per day), a vaccine that is 95 percent effective — distributed at the expected pace (Rach3: An unlikely best case scenario) — would still leave a terrible toll in the six months after it was introduced. Almost 10 million or so Americans would contract the virus, and more than 160,000 would die.
This is far worse than the toll in an alternate universe in which the vaccine was only 50 percent effective but the U.S. had reduced the infection rate to its level in early September (about 35,000 new daily cases). In that scenario, the death toll in the next six months would be kept to about 60,000.

It’s worth pausing for a moment on this comparison, because it’s deeply counterintuitive. If the U.S. had maintained its infection rate from September and Moderna and Pfizer had announced this fall that their vaccines were only 50 percent effective, a lot of people would have freaked out.

But the reality we have is actually worse.

How could this be? No vaccine can eliminate a pandemic immediately, just as no fire hose can put out a forest fire. While the vaccine is being distributed, the virus continues to do damage. “Bluntly stated, we’ll get out of this pandemic faster if we give the vaccine less work to do,” A. David Paltiel, one of the Health Affairs authors and a professor at the Yale School of Public Health told NYT.

[Rach3]

NYT Coronavirus Newsletter 12/9:

"Over all, more than 100 million Americans — about one in three — live in an area where hospitals reported fewer than 15 percent of intensive care beds were still available as of last week.

In Los Angeles County, amid a surge in cases, some officials who oppose restaurant restrictions are forming their own health departments.

Eight members of a team that carried out a federal execution last month in Indiana have contracted the coronavirus — and a majority of them plan to return for more executions this week. ( Sieg Heil !!!)

Dismissing health concerns and despite a positive case on the premises last week, the State Department hosted 200 guests for indoor tours and holiday drinks Tuesday night.

A witness who testified about alleged voter fraud in Michigan said she is not self-quarantining after testing positive for the coronavirus, and likely won't do so unless Trump or a friendly rightwing news station tells her to."

The above should be in jail.

[Rach3]

Per NYT today:

" The Trump administration has yet to distribute nearly one-third of the funds provided by Congress for coronavirus testing and contact tracing, leading Senate Democrats say."

Genocidal.

[Rach3]

From NYT Coronavirus Newsletter tonight ; read and weep:

A 32-year-old close to Dr. Fauci — the brother of his daughter’s boyfriend — has died of Covid-19. “He’s a perfectly healthy 32-year-old guy who got Covid, got the cardiac complications and died within like a week.”

More than 6,600 college athletes, coaches and staff members have tested positive for the coronavirus this year, according to a New York Times analysis. But that’s far from the total picture. Many colleges are reluctant to release data, especially about college football, which is often their most lucrative program.

"What I did after working in a supermarket during Covid, wearing a mask and gloves for the six-hour shift, was quit. The market had a sign on the front door that said masks were “required” but did not enforce requirement. A man coughed in my face and I said to myself, “That’s it! I’m out!” Of course, I’m not eligible for unemployment benefits. So I sit in my house slowly becoming agoraphobic and broke."
— Deborah Fitton, Englewood, Fla.

[maestrob]

From NYT Coronavirus Newsletter tonight ; read and weep:

A 32-year-old close to Dr. Fauci — the brother of his daughter’s boyfriend — has died of Covid-19. “He’s a perfectly healthy 32-year-old guy who got Covid, got the cardiac complications and died within like a week.”

More than 6,600 college athletes, coaches and staff members have tested positive for the coronavirus this year, according to a New York Times analysis. But that’s far from the total picture. Many colleges are reluctant to release data, especially about college football, which is often their most lucrative program.

"What I did after working in a supermarket during Covid, wearing a mask and gloves for the six-hour shift, was quit. The market had a sign on the front door that said masks were “required” but did not enforce requirement. A man coughed in my face and I said to myself, “That’s it! I’m out!” Of course, I’m not eligible for unemployment benefits. So I sit in my house slowly becoming agoraphobic and broke."
— Deborah Fitton, Englewood, Fla.

As to how Republicans are handling things in Florida, do see my post about the woman scientist there whose house was raided by police because she refused to alter covid-19 official stats to suit the governor. Her career as a government scientist has now been ruined.

Are Republican states evolving into their own country, where police-state rules now apply?

[barney]

As I just pointed out in another thread, Texans are now talking about seceding. Let them call themselves the United Morons of America, and let them go as soon as possible. Let the slave states join them, and they can have what they failed to get in the 1860s. Penury and covid will give them plenty to worry about. Honestly, the Republicans (with honorable exceptions)are so corrupt and venal that the nation is better off without them.
Of course I know this won't happen, but I am so tired of their vicious behaviour and constant whining. The 20 states joining Texas is what they knew what a seditious and undemocratic court case was the last straw. Just vile.

[maestrob]

As I just pointed out in another thread, Texans are now talking about seceding. Let them call themselves the United Morons of America, and let them go as soon as possible. Let the slave states join them, and they can have what they failed to get in the 1860s. Penury and covid will give them plenty to worry about. Honestly, the Republicans (with honorable exceptions)are so corrupt and venal that the nation is better off without them.
Of course I know this won't happen, but I am so tired of their vicious behaviour and constant whining. The 20 states joining Texas is what they knew what a seditious and undemocratic court case was the last straw. Just vile.

Yes. I admit freely that had me going there for a while too. In fact, I have yet to recover fully, especially considering that "Democrat" cities pretty much support the rural populations of those states with Federal benefits paid from our income tax dollars.

Our Federal minimum wage is an astronomical $7/hr. Those who are working jobs that pay that wage-level are entitled to both free health care (Medicaid), pay no income tax, receive federal subsidies (especially farmers) and qualify for food stamps, just to mention a few ideas. Thus, "Democrat" cities are subsidizing the businesses that pay these low wages in Republican states that refuse to raise the state minimum wage, as well as the many citizens there who claim federal disability benefits (paid by Social Security) because they claim they can't work, a legal industry in itself that employs many hundreds if not thousands of attorneys who can afford to advertise on TV.

Franklin D. Roosevelt said in a speech during the height of the Great Depression, when people were begging for work at a wage of $1/day, said that no business that couldn't pay a wage that allowed someone to earn a decent living deserved to exist in our economy.

Republicans' answer to that idea has been to crush wages and destroy workers' rights over the past 40 years to the point where we are today. So much for trickle-down theory.

[barney]

Trickle down? Of course it works Brian. That's where the rich piss on the rest of us from a great height.

[maestrob]

Trickle down? Of course it works Brian. That's where the rich piss on the rest of us from a great height.

Just so.

Right now, I'm sitting here wondering how all these grossly mis-managed Republican states would fare if they actually seceded from the United States, given all the money that flows to their citizens from our "Democrat" taxes that we send to Washington. Here's a partial list of what they would have to give up:

1) Social security payments both for retirement and disability
2) Medicare & a major portion of Medicaid funding
3) Federal subsidies for various industries, including fossil fuels and farmers
4) The right to earn a federally mandated minimum wage
5) Food stamps
6) Federal guarantees to their pensions (the few that are left) if they go broke
7) The right to access Obamacare policies
FEMA disaster relief when natural disasters happen (hurricanes, flooding, tornadoes, etc.)
9) Federal flood insurance coverage. Homeowners' policies sold in the USA do not provide flood insurance: policies must be bought separately from the Federal government
10) Federal protections of workers' rights, including Federal funding of extended unemployment benefits. Some states now provide as little as 12-14 weeks (Florida, Georgia, Missouri, North Carolina) unemployment compensation to their residents, and others pay a maximum of $240/wk. All these are Republican-controlled states, of course.

https://www.savingtoinvest.com/maximum- ... -by-state/

So, I really don't think anyone's going to secede soon, or indeed at all.

[Rach3]

Are Republican states evolving into their own country, where police-state rules now apply?

Not just GOP States.It's hard not to be ashamed of the USA:

https://www.yahoo.com/news/mcmanus-trum ... 58231.html

“…Already, Republican state officials who helped certify Biden’s victories in Georgia and other states have fielded death threats from Trump’s most zealous supporters. The Republican leader of Pennsylvania’s state Senate told the New York Times that if she broke with the president, “I’d get my house bombed tonight.”

“The Republican Party may not realize it, but it has become an antidemocratic force,” Geoffrey Kabaservice, a GOP historian, told me. “Many conservatives believe that they can’t win elections anymore because Democrats always corrupt the process, and that can justify antidemocratic means…. Trump has legitimized a strain of conservatism that had been repressed before, but now it’s in control.”…The biggest danger of Trump’s effort is that he has convinced so many Republicans that the election was rigged, establishing a precedent for future candidates to refuse to accept the outcome of a democratic vote…For the moment, we appear to be escaping a full-scale constitutional crisis thanks to Biden’s healthy vote margin, the weakness of Trump’s case and the incompetence of his legal team. We may not be so lucky next time.” LA Times

https://www.yahoo.com/news/michigan-ele ... 32323.html

16 Michigan electors will travel to the state capitol in Lansing on Monday to cast their ballots for the next president.
They will be accompanied by a police escort, according to The New York Times.On the day of the Electoral College vote, right-wing protesters have announced that they will demonstrate outside of the Michigan Capitol.
This follows protests on Saturday night outside of the home of Michigan's secretary of state.
The group shouted conspiracy theories before police were called, according to the Independent…
Since Michigan is an 'open carry' state, meaning that it is lawful for a citizen to carry a gun in public, Monday's protests could involve protesters carrying firearms.”

(Rach3: " Could " ? WILL.)

https://www.yahoo.com/huffpost/bob-good ... 51561.html

“Looking out at the largely maskless throng of attendees at a pro-Trump rally in Washington, D.C., on Saturday, Republican Congressman-elect Bob Good dismissed the coronavirus pandemic as “phony” and lauded the crowd as “a group of people that gets it.” “I can’t tell you how great it is to look out there and see your faces,” said Good, who won Virginia’s 5th Congressional District seat last month. “This looks like a group of people that gets it. This is a phony pandemic.” “It’s a serious virus, but it’s a virus, it’s not a pandemic,” continued Good, who was wearing a Trump 2020 hat but no mask.”

https://news.yahoo.com/texas-gop-chair- ... 34077.html

Texas GOP Charman:
“Allen West , also retired Army lieutenant, claimed that the Supreme Court gave other states permission to “take unconstitutional actions and violate its own election law” and that throwing the case out would have “damaging effects on other states that abide by the law, while the guilty state suffers no consequences.” Allen would then make a statement implying that certain states should break away from the United States.“Perhaps law-abiding states should bond together and form a Union of states that will abide by the constitution.”

[Rach3]

Finally,WAPO,Dec.12:

"Thousands of maskless rallygoers who refuse to accept the results of the election turned downtown Washington into a falsehood-filled spectacle Saturday, two days before the electoral college will make the president’s loss official.

In smaller numbers than their gathering last month, they roamed from the Capitol to the Mall and back again, seeking inspiration from speakers who railed against the Supreme Court, Fox News and President-elect Joe Biden. The crowds cheered for recently pardoned former national security adviser Michael Flynn, marched with conspiracy theorist Alex Jones and stood in awe of a flyover from what appeared to be Marine One.

But at night, the scene became violent. At least four people were stabbed near Harry’s Bar at 11th and F streets NW, a gathering point for the Proud Boys, a male-chauvinist organization with ties to white nationalism.The victims were hospitalized and suffered possibly life-threatening injuries, D.C. fire spokesman Doug Buchanan said. It was not immediately clear with which groups the attackers or the injured might have been affiliated.

The violence escalated after an evening of faceoffs with counterprotesters that took place near Harry’s, Black Lives Matter Plaza, Franklin Square, and other spots around downtown.
At first, officers in riot gear successfully kept the two sides apart, even as the groups splintered and roamed. In helmets and bulletproof vests, Proud Boys marched through downtown in militarylike rows, shouting “move out” and “1776!” They became increasingly angry as they wove through streets and alleys, only to find police continuously blocking their course with lines of bikes.“Both sides of the aisle hate you now. Congratulations,” a Proud Boy shouted at the officers.

But before long, the agitators determined to find trouble were successful — and posturing quickly turned into punching, kicking and wrestling.

Again and again, officers swarmed, pulling the instigators apart, firing chemical irritants and forming lines between the sides. At Harry’s Bar, an ambulance arrived, but the extent of injuries was unknown.
Each time a fight was de-escalated, another soon began in a different part of town.
D.C. Police Chief Peter Newsham made a brief appearance in the chaos, telling protesters: “We’re doing the best we can.”
In an interview, Newsham said police units were deployed across downtown to keep the groups apart. He said smaller segments of people who splintered from larger gatherings seemed “intent on conflict.”D.C. police said that as of 9 p.m., 23 people were arrested Saturday, including 10 who were charged with misdemeanor assaults, six with assaulting police officers and four with rioting. Police said one person had an illegal Taser.

Two officers were hospitalized with moderate injuries suffered during clashes at 16th and K streets NW, police said. In all, police said eight people — including the four stabbing victims and the two officers — were injured.

The scuffles seemed poised to continue late into the night, as the black-and-yellow-clad Proud Boys knocked back beers, whiskey and White Claws. Some stole a Black Lives Matter banner, paraded it down M Street NW, then stomped on it

The group received recognition from Trump himself at a presidential debate in September, when he told them to “stand back and stand by.” As the Proud Boys appeared at rallies earlier in the day Saturday, Trump cheered on all of the supporters who showed up to falsely claim that the election was stolen from him, tweeting “Wow! Thousands of people forming in Washington (D.C.) for Stop the Steal. Didn’t know about this, but I’ll be seeing them! #MAGA.”

The majority-White crowd ranged from gray-haired men and women in red hats to children in wagons, one of whom chanted “100 more years!”
As the nation watches Biden’s transition, rising coronavirus cases and vaccine development, Trump’s attempts to maintain power have also been playing out. To his most dedicated supporters, the president’s megaphone is as loud as ever. He has continued to falsely claim the election was stolen from him, prompting his faithful to return to the nation’s capital.

Flynn appeared on the steps of the Supreme Court to encourage them to maintain hope, despite the justices’ dismissal Friday night of Trump’s long-shot bid to overturn election results.
“Don’t get bent out of shape,” Flynn said. “There are still avenues … We’re fighting with faith, and we’re fighting with courage.” After Flynn finished speaking, he was chased by shouting admirers who cheered: “We love you, general!” Bodyguards tried to keep the fans at bay as Flynn kept smiling.

The speakers painted a picture of a country in a battle between good and evil, in which God himself would ultimately ensure Trump remained in power. Sebastian Gorka, a former foreign policy adviser to Trump, said that when he heard the Supreme Court had dismissed an election case from Texas on Friday night, he told himself to “stop, take a deep breath, count to 10, read the Bible and pray.”“We, thanks to our lord and savior, have already won,” Gorka claimed.A priest featured on a Jumbotron prayed to “place thyself at the head of this army of thy children.”Ruth Hillary, 58, a pastor from California, listened while holding up her “Stop the Steal” sign. She said she will continue to protest as long as the president and vice president believe she should.“If President Trump accepts it and Vice President Pence accepts it, then we will accept it,” she said. “But right now, this is a Godly protest.”

Alex Jones, the Infowars host known for his denial of the Sandy Hook massacre, alternated between speaking about God and the future president: “Joe Biden is a globalist, and Joe Biden will be removed one way or another,” he said from a stage on the Mall.
Trump backer and MyPillow founder Mike Lindell argued that “Fox [News] was in on it,” while podcaster David Harris Jr. riled the crowd by suggesting that if there were a civil war, “we’re the ones with all the guns,” he said.

All day, the masses nodded along to falsehoods, prayed for the country and cheered beside one another without masks.

D.C. police did not enforce mask rules or issue fines to those who ignored social distancing guidelines, even as the region faces an unprecedented spike in coronavirus cases. Dozens of D.C. police officers have tested positive in the weeks since the last pro-Trump rally in November. As of Friday, 94 remained in quarantine. Police have declined to draw a direct link between demonstrations and the spike in infections among officers.


On Saturday, local activists were frustrated with police tactics aimed at maintaining peace. For part of the evening, officers formed intermittent blockades at the perimeter of Black Lives Matter Plaza, essentially penning in counterprotesters while Trump supporters were free to roam.“They can move around however they please,” said Constance Young, 37. “We’re not the ones not wearing masks and spreading covid.”

D.C. residents have expressed concern that the influx of maskless protesters puts the entire city at risk, especially workers in restaurants and hotels. Activists flooded the inboxes of city officials, asking them to shut down businesses that allow people to congregate without masks. They called hotels to ask that they refuse to host those planning to attend Saturday’s rallies, with little success.Protesters still came in from around the country, with family, friends and flags in tow.
David Dumiter, 33, and his niece Monica Stanciu drove eight hours from Dearborn, Mich., to be at the Washington Monument on Saturday.
Dumiter, an airplane mechanic who said he has been unemployed since the pandemic decimated air travel, said he knew the Supreme Court had blocked any legal path to reverse the results of the election. That didn’t change his mind about showing up Saturday. The president was still pushing, so he would, too.
“We’re not going to cave in,” Dumiter said.
That sentiment seemed to fuel the pro-Trump groups that stretched their demonstrations late into the night, even after every fight was broken up by police and multiple arrests were made.
At Harry’s, a half-dozen Proud Boys marched through the streets, chanting, “all lives matter!” They were cheered on by other members of the group who joined them at 11th and E streets NW, flashing the three-fingered white-supremacist salute.

Moments later, the crowd turned and converged on a corner, shoving and jostling as the chant rose to a fever pitch. Men pushed each other as they tried to film what was happening in the center of the chaos.
More than 100 D.C. police officers swarmed the street. Police with canisters of chemical spray rushed into the fray, pushing people aside and separating the crowd. Two people lying on the sidewalk were transferred into ambulances.
But an hour later, more than 150 demonstrators were still there, chanting and drinking in the rain. The president was refusing to concede the election, and they were refusing to go home."

And the GOP cowards and traitors remain silent.

[maestrob]

Bluster and poppycock!

The threat of violence is quite real, of course, but that will only hurt their phony "cause" in the long run.

OTOH, do read my latest post from today's reporting in the Times above coming in a few minutes. It's all nonsense, really, but like a snake eating its own tail, it's bound to start hurting them more and more.

[Rach3]

"Bar Lives Matter." Their children may be above average, but Minnesota adults are not. Of course,drinking Bud Light.

WAPO
Teo Armus
Dec. 18, 2020 at 5:59 a.m. CST
"Over the TV sets playing at Alibi Drinkery on Wednesday, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D) announced that his state would continue to ban indoor dining in its battle against the coronavirus. But inside the sports bar, the crowd of people watching his address had a different idea.
Standing shoulder to shoulder, they sang along as Lee Greenwood’s “God Bless the USA” blared from the speakers that night. In a since-deleted video posted by co-owner Lisa Monet Zarza, customers at the Lakeville, Minn. watering hole raised their fists and Bud Light bottles in defiance.
By Thursday, the bar had been sued by the state of Minnesota and told that its liquor license will be suspended. But Alibi Drinkery will stay open for business, Zarza said.
In a text message to The Washington Post early Friday, she argued that Walz’s indoor dining ban violated the Constitution and amounted to “discrimination” against restaurants and their staff.
“We are not asking for special treatment,” she said. “We are asking for fair treatment.”
It is hardly the first time this year that bar owners and their customers have decried restrictions meant to limit the spread of the coronavirus, which has killed more than 309,000 people nationwide, according to data tracked by The Post.
There were the party people who kept living it up in March, and the restaurants and lounges that had to be boarded up soon after so no one would congregate inside. In May, maskless crowds descended on Wisconsin taverns suddenly allowed to open, and two months later, a group of Texas bar owners rallied in Austin while declaring that “Bar Lives Matter.”
As a second wave ravages the United States, there is more evidence than ever suggesting that crowded eating and drinking establishments may spread the virus. A study published this week by scientists at Stanford and Northwestern universities found that restaurants and coffee shops are among the highest-risk locations for transmission.
But nine months into the pandemic, the same arguments are being made in opposition — this time, in Minnesota.

These venues are high-risk areas for spreading the coronavirus, model suggests
When a surge in infections devastated the Upper Midwest this fall, Walz announced a sweeping set of measures meant to bring numbers down, including a controversial ban on indoor and outdoor dining set to expire this week. More than 389,00 cases have been reported in Minnesota, and at least 4,658 have died.
Walz delivered mixed news for the state’s restaurants on Wednesday: Because the number of new cases had dropped, they could reopen for more than just curbside carryout, he said. But any form of indoor dining — even in the frigid Minnesota winter — was still banned.
At lunch that day, however, nearly every seat inside Alibi Drinkery was filled with customers downing pints of beer. As KSTP reported, a sign on the door said the establishment was “constitutionally compliant” and would not be forcing diners to wear masks or practice social distancing.
Some people told the TV station they planned to barhop to other watering holes that had defiantly chosen to reopen this week, part of a coordinated effort called the “ReOpen Minnesota Coalition.”

“We want to let freedom ring. We want to have freedom, that’s why,” one customer, Gary Shade of Apple Valley, Minn., said. “I’m just tired of this stuff. We’ve been on lockdown of some type for nine months. Enough’s enough.”
Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison (D) sued Alibi Drinkery and another pub early Thursday, pressuring them to abide by Walz’s order and seeking up to $25,000 in civil penalties for each violation.
That other establishment, Neighbors on the Rum in Princeton, Minn., was quick to comply. “I wasn’t going to push it with today. Fair is fair,” the pub’s owner, Joe Holtz, told KARE.
The same could not be said for Alibi Drinkery. On its Facebook page Thursday morning, the bar wrote that it was “OPEN TODAY. COME IN FOR FOOD AND DRINKS!”

Hours later, Ellison filed a motion for a temporary restraining order against Alibi Drinkery. If the bar would not willingly stop “endangering the lives of their customers, employees, and communities,” he said, he would have to force them.
“It’s like driving 105 miles an hour in a residential neighborhood,” Ellison, whose mother died of covid-19 complications, said of the restaurant’s refusal to shut down.
Zarza, however, said restaurants have been tied to few infections in Minnesota and pointed to comments from Walz acknowledging that bars and restaurants have unfairly borne the pandemic’s economic burden.
For now, she still has her liquor license and a conviction that “every person should have the right to make these decisions for themselves and their families.”
Asked by KSTP whether she thought state officials might be paying the bar a visit soon, Zarza shrugged and said, “I would expect so. But they can have a burger."

[Rach3]

What's $1B going to do anyway ? GOP monsters:

Per Iowa Public Radio tonight:

"Majority Leader Jack Whitver says Iowa Senate Republicans have not yet discussed spending some of the state’s budget surplus on pandemic relief. Iowa has a budget surplus of more than $300 million and more than $700 million in rainy day funds. Whitver says he understands people are hurting and wants to help, but Iowa Republicans have left it to the federal government to pay for pandemic relief.”

[Rach3]

What, Me worry that LA area is presently out of ICU beds ?

https://www.yahoo.com/sports/brian-kell ... 25785.html

[maestrob]

If we had had proper leadership and no Fox News during the past year, none of this would have happened as outlined in your two posts above.

God help us all if people continue to be so gullible!

Mark Shields on PBS in his last regular appearance on the News Hour was making the point strongly that we don't teach civics and critical thinking in schools around the country any more the way you and I learned it in high school. Less than 1/3 of Americans surveyed recently could name the three branches of government, including one Republican House member who just got elected, IIRC.

All this because of Republicans cutting taxes and thus funding for schools.

We live in a stupid country, deliberately made so, IMHO.

Used to be, when we were growing up, that government functioned properly. Progress was made by compromise. Social Security and unemployment insurance were created. The Hoover Dam and similar structures were built. American became electrified. Laws making our food supply safe were enacted. Eisenhower, a Republican, sent in troops in 1957 to begin the segregation of schools. He also built our national system of highways & bridges. Modern airports were created, along with the airline industry. The G. I. Bill educated a whole generation of our servicemen and women. Medicare & Medicaid passed. Civil rights legislation happened. Workers rights were created and enforced. Media were regulated so that they reported facts. Leaders of both parties cared about the environment and made regulations and passed legislation to clean up our air and water. The internet was created.

Not to mention the incredible creativity in the arts that we all love here.

So what have we accomplished in this century besides invent the cellphone and run up incredible debt at the federal level? Perhaps Obamacare, which could still disappear? Amy Coney Barrett refused to acknowledge the constitutionality of Social Security and Medicare during her confirmation hearing!

The first rule of holes is, "When you're in one, stop digging!"

We have to stop digging. Now.

[Rach3]

From NYT tonight:


Dozens of people protesting virus restrictions — many with weapons, body armor or flags supporting President Trump — tried to force their way into Oregon’s State Capitol building in Salem.

Many Americans aren’t postponing holiday travel, even during the worst period of the pandemic. On each of the last three days, more than a million travelers passed through airport security checkpoints in the United States.

[barney]

It's Darwin's law. The longer this goes on, the more people are going to die, and more of them will be Republicans because of their idiotically ideological approach to public safety, their own and others. Don't get me wrong, I don't wish it upon anyone, but the stupider you are the more likely you are to suffer.

[Belle]

From the NYT today:

"The New York Young Republican Club held its annual gala. Images posted on Twitter showed attendees gathered inside, close together and wearing no masks."

These people should be in jail.

Yes, put everybody in jail - but defund the police:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ap8FfZTgECY

[jserraglio]

Yes, put everybody in jail - but defund the police

Republicans, I’m happy to announce, are not everybody. They cannot even muster 47% of voters to re-elect their own incumbent.

[Belle]

Quick; run and hide. This African American professor talks about 'the enemy without and the enemy within'. No wonder it cost Prof. Lowry his co-called friendships; nobody hates quite like the Left.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OL5G2Y6LMpE

[jserraglio]

nobody hates quite like the Left.

Extremism is no vice, moderation is no virtue has long been the ugly watchword of the Right in America, and it cost the GOP two presidential elections, 1964 and 2020.

[Rach3]

Yes, put everybody in jail - but defund the police:

Obviously not, need the police to arrest the NY Young Republican attendees. Neither group behaved here as they should .The Right, of course, silent.

[barney]

Quick; run and hide. This African American professor talks about 'the enemy without and the enemy within'. No wonder it cost Prof. Lowry his co-called friendships; nobody hates quite like the Left.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OL5G2Y6LMpE

Not true, Belle. You hate the left with the same intensity. To express it is the only reason you post these days, which is sad for everyone.

[Rach3]

From WAPO tonight:

"Mexico's coastal Riviera Maya is attracting even more American tourists than it did before the pandemic — and some of them are bringing the coronavirus back to the United States with them."

We needed a Wall, alright.


"The conservative group Turning Point USA packed thousands of largely maskless students into event centers in Florida this weekend, including Trump's Mar-a-Lago club."

TrumperJugend. Deja vu all over again.

[Rach3]

America's maskless morons:

https://tinyurl.com/ybl4lr22

You get the government you deserve. You get the disease you deserve.

[maestrob]

America's maskless morons:

https://tinyurl.com/ybl4lr22

You get the government you deserve. You get the disease you deserve.

As Bill Maher has said many times, and I agree, "We live in a stupid country!"

Thankfully, we were smart enough to vote for Democrats this past November 3. However, this is the same country that re-elected Nixon, Reagan and "W."

We keep having to learn the same lesson over and over again.

Those who don't learn history are doomed to repeat it.

[Rach3]

Per Axios this pm:

" The TSA screened its highest number of travelers yesterday (Wednesday) , nearly 1.2 million, since the pandemic began."

[Rach3]

From WAPO today:

"Over the weekend, a Wisconsin hospital announced that it had been forced to toss more than 500 doses of the coronavirus vaccine because an employee accidentally left dozens of vials unrefrigerated overnight.
But on Wednesday, the hospital said the incident was no accident.
In fact, the employee at the Aurora Medical Center in Grafton, Wis., later admitted to purposefully removing more than 50 vials of the Moderna vaccine from a refrigerator, the hospital announced, rendering them useless.
The hospital has fired the employee, who has not yet been identified, and local and federal authorities are now investigating, the Grafton Police Department confirmed to The Washington Post early on Thursday.
The employee’s tampering will delay the inoculation process for hundreds of people, the hospital said, in a state where 3,170 new cases were reported and 40 people died Wednesday of covid-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, according to The Post’s coronavirus tracker."

[barney]

What could possibly be the motivation for this sort of vandalism? The mind boggles.

[Rach3]

What could possibly be the motivation for this sort of vandalism? The mind boggles.

Probably the wacko anti-vaxers, led by one of the Kennedy family.

[maestrob]

What could possibly be the motivation for this sort of vandalism? The mind boggles.

Probably the wacko anti-vaxers, led by one of the Kennedy family.

Here's the latest reporting on the issue from today's NY Times:

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/31/us/s ... ested.html

A pharmacist at a Wisconsin hospital has been arrested and accused of intentionally removing more than 500 doses of coronavirus vaccine from refrigeration last week, knowing that the vaccines would be rendered useless and that the people receiving them would think they were protected against the virus when they were not, the police department in Grafton, Wisconsin, said Thursday.

The hospital administered some of the doses before realizing that they had been spoiled, the hospital system said.

The pharmacist, a man whom the police did not name, was arrested on recommended charges of first degree recklessly endangering safety, adulterating a prescription drug and criminal damage to property, all felonies. He is being held in the Ozaukee County jail.

It was not clear what his motive may have been. The Grafton police department is investigating the incident along with the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Food and Drug Administration, the department said.

The hospital system, Advocate Aurora Health, has given evolving accounts of what happened since it first discovered on Dec. 26 that the vaccines had been removed overnight from refrigeration.


First, it said the doses had been taken out accidentally. Then on Wednesday, it said that the pharmacist had admitted to intentionally removing the vials. On Thursday, in a video call with reporters, Jeff Bahr, the president of Aurora Health Care Medical Group, said that the pharmacist had admitted to removing the vials from refrigeration on two consecutive nights — Christmas Eve and Christmas Day — and that the hospital had administered 57 of the doses before realizing how long they had been at room temperature.

Dr. Bahr said there was no evidence that the pharmacist had tampered with the vaccine in any way other than removing it from refrigeration, and that the pharmacist was no longer employed by the hospital system.

Dr. Bahr said that the hospital had consulted with Moderna, the pharmaceutical company that made the vaccines, and had been reassured that the spoiled vaccines would not harm the individuals who received them. But because the mRNA molecules in the vaccine quickly fall apart at room temperature, the doses “were rendered less effective or ineffective,” Dr. Bahr said.

He said that the 57 people who received the vaccine had been notified. He did not say what the hospital planned to do about further doses for those people, who are probably employees of the health system, though Dr. Bahr did not say so specifically.

The hospital did not believe the incident resulted from any laxness or gaps in its protocols around managing the vaccine doses, Dr. Bahr said.

“It’s become clear that this was a situation involving a bad actor, as opposed to a bad process,” he said.

Wisconsin experienced a devastating surge of coronavirus cases in the fall, and at times was the hardest-hit state in the nation relative to its population. Transmission has since slowed a bit, but the state is still reporting about 39 new cases a day for every 100,000 people. At least 5,195 Wisconsin residents have died.

As of Tuesday, the state had received 156,875 doses of vaccines and had administered 47,157 doses, according to the Wisconsin Department of Health Services.

[Rach3]

Per Huffington Post Jan.1,2021 re: Trump attorney Lin Wood:

"Wood has also recently suggested that Vice President Mike Pence is guilty of treason and will be executed, that the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein is actually alive, and that Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts is part of a murderous pedophile cult."